The Moth

In the previous entry we identified how CF 2.0 does not support RTL on CE 5.0. We also defined what RTL support means.

Like with most features that CF does not support, we can work around this one with a bit of pinvoke. By reading this page on MSDN (thanks Chris Lorton) we see that, if we pinvoke SetWindowLong passing it the Control.Handle, we can change the RTL style.

In VS2005, to test if the above works, we populate a form with all the CF 2.0 controls and run the following method (e.g. call it from a button/menu click):

// Call this method with this.ChangeToRTL(this)
private void ChangeToRTL(Control c) {
    this.ApplyStyle(c);
    foreach (Control c2 in c.Controls) {
 this.ChangeToRTL(c2);
    }
}

private void ApplyStyle(Control c) {
    Int32 lS = GetWindowLong(c.Handle, GWL_EXSTYLE);
    lS |= WS_EX_LAYOUTRTL;
    SetWindowLong(c.Handle, GWL_EXSTYLE, lS);

    c.Invalidate();
}

To test the results you need a CE 5.0 device (or simply get the CE 5.0 emulator as described here).

I have given you enough to run the test and check the results for yourselves, but here is my summary (lookout for screenshots at the end):

1. The following controls pass the test and meet the criteria as defined previously:
button, label, textbox, checkbox, radiobutton, progress bar, v/h scrollbar, form, tabcontrol, datetimepicker, monthview, toolbar, statusbar, listbox

2. The following fail
domainupdown, numericupdown - text part right aligns but buttons remain on the right

trackbar - shade issue (need to change value for effect to take place; refresh is not good enough)

treeview - When ShowLines=true, the lines are portrayed the wrong way round

listview - columns do not right-align (they are not affected at all by the style-change)
listview - resizing a column looks funny. You drag to the right but the listviewitems below move to the left and vice-versa

MainMenu - The top mainmenu items do not change order, although they are aligned to the right (and correctly after the toolbar) menus - when clicking on toolbarbutton with a menu OR a mainmenu to bring down its menuitems, the menuitems appear to the left of the mainmenu/toolbarbutton.

combobox - It appears ok RTL *but* clicking on the dropdown button results in the list appearing but the main combo area disappearing. Clicking elsewhere to take away the focus results in the combobox being drawn to the left (it moves left exactly its width in pixels). Repeating the process eventually moves the combobox outside the form area on the left (kind of funny, really).

3. Vertical Scrollbar issue [treeview, listview, listbox, multiline textbox etc]
Regardless of what is described above, all controls that can have a vertical scrollbar work only if the style is applied *prior* to a vertical scrollbar being displayed. If the vscrollbar is visible and the RTL style is changed, then the vscrollbar stops responding (freezes) and remains on the right.

Screenshots:
Good RTL
Not so good RTL
Bad RTL
Menu RTL

If you have a CE 5.0 device with CF 2.0 on it, feel free to try the exe (in fact, if from IE on your CE 5.0 device you browse to this link, you can run it)